


Love the one you're with

by Builder



Series: Creedless Assassins [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Coronavirus Quarantine, F/M, Gen, Humor, Mission Fic, POV Natasha Romanov, Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Sickfic, Vomiting, but nothing to do with the actual virus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23394514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Builder/pseuds/Builder
Summary: When half the booze is gone, Clint’s shirt’s off.  He’s sweating, and leaning against the wall.“Should I get a bucket or something?”  Nat asks, refusing to admit to the slight slur on her tongue.“Nope.”  Clint wipes his brow on the back of his hand.  “’M fine.  But what kind of bra are you wearing?  Is it a cute one?”
Series: Creedless Assassins [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1096227
Kudos: 13





	Love the one you're with

**Author's Note:**

> find me on Tumblr @builder051

They’re stateside when the call comes in. Ohio is completely shutting down, by order of the governor. 

Their target actually pulls a U-turn in traffic drives back to his office, and spends another half hour loading CPUs into his trunk. 

Nat calls Fury just to be sure they’ve heard correctly, while Clint does not-quite donuts in the parking lot of the convenience store across the street.

“Yes, it includes you. According to the painstakingly fake paperwork in your pockets, you’re Ohio residents.”

“Joy.” Nat twists her mouth into a sideways grimace. “You know, I could always just…” She fingers the outline of the derringer in her pocket.

“No. That’s all kinds of wrong and you know it,” her superior snaps in her ear. “Lie low. Looks like he’s gonna do the same. The threat might even neutralize during the quarantine. Who knows…”

Nat grits her teeth. “You’re killing me, Fury.” 

“No, I’m not,” Fury replies. “And you’re not killing anyone. Not today.”

The call ends, and Nat reluctantly looks at her partner in the driver’s seat. “What do you want to do?” she sighs.

“What college kids do best,” Clint responds, yanking the steering wheel and pulling the outdated sedan into a parking space. “Buy beer and Cheez-Its and hunker down for the weekend.” 

“We’re not college kids.” Nat rolls her eyes. “We’re too old.” She looks at the messy pile of plagiarized papers and textbooks in the backseat. “Grad students. There’s a difference. And if you think I’m hunkering down with you…” She shakes her head.

But Clint’s already killed the ignition and hopped out of the car. “Gimme five minutes,” he mumbles, digging in his wallet for the crumpled cash they’ve been given as mission allowance.

“Smirnoff,” Nat calls after him. “Don’t just get Bud Light or whatever you think you call alcohol.”

Nat puts her feet up on the dash, and, true to his word, not five minutes later, Clint returns with two clanking glass bottles, a case of beer, and a bag stuffed with more snacks than should be allowed in human existence. 

“Barbeque flavored pork rinds?” Nat pinches the package between two fingers and wrinkles her nose. “What the fuck?” 

“Drink enough of the good stuff and you don’t taste ‘em,” Clint replies. 

“Then why’d you buy them?”

He shrugs. “Cheap.”

“You are a fucking college kid.”

Clint swerves back onto the road and gets them back to their ghetto apartment, which was supposed to be theirs just for the weekend. Now Nat considers the air mattress and pair of open suitcases on the floor and wonders just how long they can make this work without blowing up. Or fucking. The alcohol will surely smooth things over in potentially a good or a very, very bad way.

They tromp loudly up the metal stairs, complaining about their heavy backpacks, yet blessing the university system for giving them extra time to work on their term papers. In the joke to end the ages, they’ve traded specialties. Clint’s studying Russian, and Nat’s working on tactical physics. They’re not just assassins; they have smarts too.

Once inside the tiny studio, Clint sets up a pair of laptops while Nat hooks in a daisy chain of cords that eventually brings an image of their target onto one screen, and footage of his empty office onto the other. 

“We’re really gonna watch him play soccer with his kids?” Clint shakes his head.

“I’ll watch that one, if you’d rather,” Nat offers. “You can watch the dust motes on the other one.” She points to the empty office, silent save for the low rumble of traffic still passing the window outside.

“Fine, fine.” Clint pops a beer and opens a bag of snack mix. 

Nat actually watches the sloppy goings on of Beckham, jr. for a while, just to spite Clint. Then she can’t resist the vodka anymore. 

“Slow down on that,” Clint advises, raising his eyebrows at the half-empty bottle Nat keeps lifting to her lips. “I don’t want to deal with you when you’ve got a hangover.”

“Hmph.” Nat throws one of Clint’s three empty beer cans at his head. “Same to you, princess.”

When half the booze is gone, Clint’s shirt’s off. He’s sweating, and leaning against the wall. 

“Should I get a bucket or something?” Nat asks, refusing to admit to the slight slur on her tongue. 

“Nope.” Clint wipes his brow on the back of his hand. “’M fine. But what kind of bra are you wearing? Is it a cute one?”

He cocks his head in a way that Nat has to admit goes somewhere between her heart and her pants. Her gut, she supposes. 

“Lightweight bulletproof vest, babe,” she replies. “Not that cute.”

“Oh.” Clint’s face falls, but Nat starts to laugh. Then Clint laughs. Gags a couple of times. Insists he’s fine again.

“You sure about that?”

Clint nods emphatically, even though he’s green. 

“Two choices, then. You either proof my paper, or we can play chess.”

“Internet chess?” Clint looks confused.

“Nope.” Nat rummages in her suitcase and pulls the dented magnetic chessboard from an inside pocket. “I never travel without it. Just in case, you know.”

“In case of what?”

Nat shrugs. “This, I guess.”

It’s Clint’s turn to give a hearty harrumph. “Black or white?” he asks.

“I’m black, of course,” Nat says, setting up her pieces. “You’re too pure to be anything but white.”

“Riiiiight. But, really, what’s under the bulletproof vest?”

Nat flicks a pawn at him, which hits him directly in the forehead, leaving a pink indent.

“Concentrate. Or I’ll do it for you.”

“Scary.” Clint turns his gaze down to his pieces.

It takes roughly ten minutes of play for Nat to corner his king, but she humors him, going along good naturedly as half-watches the target switch to Frisbee instead of soccer ball on the CCTV. She expects this to go on for an hour or more, giving her plenty of time to plan how to maneuver Clint into the makeshift bed to sleep off his own stupidity. Usually it wouldn’t take a nanosecond, but Nat has to admit, she’s a little slammed too. The last decade hasn’t been the kindest to her once-untouchable composition.

It’s all cut short, though, when Clint opens his mouth, to decry her tactics, Nat thinks, but instead he vomits up warm beer and lumpy orange something all over the board.

“Oh, wonderful,” Nat says sarcastically, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling his head against her chest as she drags him into the cramped bathroom. “I was waiting for that.”

“Sure,” Clint sputters, gulping and smacking his wet lips. “I can’t—I’m gonna—“

“Yeah, I know.” Nat positions him over the toilet, using the overgrown hair at the scruff of his neck as a handle.

“Fucking—ow—“ He retches again.

“Shut up.” Nat ignores him and looks down at herself, the front of her pale grey t-shirt covered in neon bodily fluids. She sighs and grabs the hem, pulling the garment over her head and flinging it into the corner of the shower stall. 

“It is kinda cute,” Clint mutters, turning his head so his cheek rests on the toilet seat. He raises his brows and nods toward the invisible zipper of Nat’s bulletproof vest, buried in the center of her cleavage. 

“I thought I told you to shut up,” Nat replies. The words hang in the air between them for a moment. But then the corner of Clint’s mouth ticks up into half a smile. He’s drunk, and he probably can’t help it.

And Nat can’t help it, either.


End file.
